


Miles to Go Before I Sleep

by angesradieux



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28263648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angesradieux/pseuds/angesradieux
Summary: Ragnar tries to come to terms with Athelstan's death
Comments: 14
Kudos: 12
Collections: Darkfics Super-Duper Mega Collection





	Miles to Go Before I Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Darkfics_super_duper_mega_collection](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Darkfics_super_duper_mega_collection) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> I’d like to see what you guys can cook up concerning suicide. You can write about anything your heart desires: suicidal thoughts, attempt(s), aftermath, failure, success, etc. If hurt/comfort is your thing, go for it. If not, pure angst is great with me. Either way, I’d love to see what has driven the character to such a desperate breaking point.
> 
> Any fandom is great with me.
> 
> Author's Note: Okay. So I finally wrote a fic that focuses on someone other than Athelstan! Although Athelstan is obviously a huge influence here, even if he doesn't make a physical appearance. Lots of dialogue here. Far more than I really intended when I started writing this fic. Let me know what you think! I'm hoping Ragnar doesn't come off as out of character. I tried not to make his emotional monologues too over the top, but I'm not sure if I succeeded in striking the right balance. Feedback is always much appreciated! Let me know what you think.
> 
> ~Anges

Ragnar is no stranger to death. Their world is harsh and he knows full well that none save the gods know what the future holds. Especially for those who dare get close to a king. There has been a target on his back for some time, becoming ever larger and more attractive as his fame and power grow. It is simply the way of the world. But while death has become a near constant companion, grief is not so familiar.

The king felt no grief for most who died on the field of battle. Why should he have? They had been called to the halls of Valhalla, to drink and fight in the presence of the gods. They were likely far happier than they had been in this world, and in any case the farewell was only temporary. Eventually, they would all find each other again. He had mourned for his unborn child and he wept for Gyda, but those were exceptions to the rule.

Unaccustomed to the weight of sorrow that can settle deep into one’s bones and wrap around the heart as a set of cruel chains, when it strikes, the sheer force of it leaves Ragnar breathless. He’s been pitched into a cold, black sea, barely able to thrust his head above the surface long enough to draw a breath as the waves continue to crash down upon him. He thinks those first days are hard—walking through Kattegat, sometimes expecting to find his priest waiting for him around a corner, or perhaps drinking with Torstein and Arne. Ragnar looks for him often, only to be struck by the crushing realization.

Dead. Athelstan is dead. Murdered, because Ragnar hadn’t been there to protect him.

Ragnar thinks he might just die. The world is bleak and cold and he sees little point in continuing to inhabit it. But he lives. The gods do not call him away and he walks the halls of his home as a phantom—a mere shadow of the man he had once been.

But if those days had been difficult, winter is nigh on intolerable. Snowfall keeps him indoors and makes the path to Athelstan’s grave impassible. Ivar is always wailing and Aslaug has lost her patience with his grief. He’s had more than enough time to get over his Christian pet and his family needs his attention, she insists. Ragnar can’t even look at her.

He sleeps in the room that had once been Athelstan’s.

He ought to be planning the summer raid on Paris. It is to be his greatest achievement yet, but it will take careful strategy. Except, Ragnar finds he no longer cares about either the glory or the riches the endeavor will bring him. He should be planning this with Athelstan, imagining arriving in their ships and seeing those blue eyes light with excitement as they near the city he’d spoken of so fondly and being treated to that special smile the priest always gave and the slight catch of his breath before rattling off facts and explanations that Ragnar couldn’t understand how he managed to recall so easily.

Athelstan had always spoken softly. At one time Ragnar had taken it as a sign of the meek timidness of the Saxon. But in time, he’d come to learn that Athelstan didn’t raise his voice simply because there was no need. Even with that gentle voice of his, he managed to speak with such passion and animation that he could command an entire room. The way his hands would move and the dozens of expressions that could flit across his face in mere moments will never again leave a king breathlessly waiting for more.

Ragnar no longer cares for Paris.

What he does care about is Floki. The viper is a constant presence at his side, desperate to occupy a place that would never again belong to him. Once upon a time, Ragnar had considered him a valued and trusted friend.

Never again.

Now Ragnar can only wonder if his voice had always been so oily and his touch so suffocating. How had he not noticed before? His stomach roils with every word and his jaw clenches so tightly it’s a wonder his teeth haven’t yet shattered. And, too, he has to wonder if Floki can _truly_ believe that Ragnar doesn’t know what he’s done. Surely the boatbuilder isn’t so stupid as to take Ragnar for a fool.

Apparently he is.

Ragnar aches to put an end to it. It would be so easy to just bury an axe in his back or separate that smirking head from his shoulders. The gods know he deserves it. They’d not fault him for it, surely. Except Ragnar still needs the slippery bastard, and so he has to feign ignorance and pretend that he isn’t sick at the very sight of him.

Even if he’s about ready to risk death amidst the snowdrifts just to get away from him.

From all of them, really. Ragnar had never had very many friends—a natural consequence of his ambition. Athelstan was the only man he’d trusted implicitly and without question, but there had been, once, a handful of others he felt enough of a bond with to consider important to him. That number dwindles by the day.

Floki had been the first to oust himself, although he’s not yet realized it. And then Aslaug. He’d seen the anger in her eyes from the moment he’d taken to wearing Athelstan’s cross. She and Floki are much the same in both their jealousy and the inability to understand that removing the object of Ragnar’s affection will not make them any dearer to him. Even in the grave, Athelstan maintains a much firmer grip on the Viking’s heart than Floki or Aslaug could ever aspire to.

Rollo goes next. Ragnar never trusted his brother, but at one time they could at least respect each other. That dies the moment Rollo dares to say that they’re better off without the priest, anyway—that he had never truly been one of them. He may have been obligated to maintain some sense of composure faced with Floki and Aslaug but all of Kattegat knows the contentious nature of his relationship with his brother. Therefore few so much as bother to notice when Rollo’s face becomes better acquainted with Ragnar’s fist before the king retreats for the evening.

He fucking hates all of them.

And yet he must rule them because there is no other fit to be king and his entire life is clearly something of a joke to the gods. They like to see him squirm and suffer and writhe, trying to escape their vindictive glee, and yet always ultimately crushed beneath their thumb. Is it any wonder, then, that he’s abandoned them? He had once been prepared to offer them everything and anything for their favor, and still they turned away.

Ragnar doesn’t know if he believes in any god anymore. It seems they have all forsaken him. But he tries to believe in Athelstan’s god—the useless, dead Christ of his, who could have protected him but chose not to—only because he knows that Athelstan is in his Heaven, where Ragnar can never hope to see him again unless he tries to make the Christian faith his own.

Alone in Athelstan’s room, he tries to pray. But he finds that he can’t. Instead, he sits in his priest’s bed, slumped over with his head in his hands. “You loved Him—your Christ. You always did. Even when he let us raid your church and take you as a slave. And still, after your own people nailed you to a cross.” He runs a hand across his bald scalp. “I mean _fuck,_ Athelstan! You suffered. I know you did. I heard you weep, those first nights, when you thought everyone asleep. I saw the shadows in your eye that never really left, even once you were free. And the scars on your hands…”

He huffs out a sigh.

“I’m sorry to think that so many of those times, it is I who caused your pain. Except, otherwise we’d not have met, and I cannot regret what brought you to me. I’m not sorry I took you. But I do regret that you suffered.”

Had he ever said as much to the priest while he was alive—had he ever apologized for all the wrongs he’d done him? Ragnar doesn’t think he did. It’s perhaps one of the greatest failings of his life, and yet Athelstan had forgiven him, even finding it in his heart to love Ragnar as a valued friend. Once, he’d taken the priest’s gentleness for weakness. Now he appreciates that steadfast kindness and near boundless capacity to forgive for what it always was—a kind of strength Ragnar will never be able to comprehend.

“I hated Odin for far less than that. And yet you always prayed. You never hated your Christ.” He shrugs, lips lifting in a rueful smile. “It’s alright. I think sometimes I hated Him enough for the both of us. I hate Him now. I hate Him for taking you.”

He takes hold of the crucifix around his neck, gripping the chain loosely and letting the cross dangle. He stares at it, contemplating. “How did you forgive Him? I don’t understand it. How, after all of it, did you still manage to pray? I need you. I need you to teach me.”

Finally, he turns his eyes to the heavens. “But you can’t, can you? Because you’re _not here_. You’re dead. He _fucking took you_ when He should have protected you.” He pulls the chain over his head and throws the cross across the room, listening as it hits the wall and falls to the ground with a light, unsatisfying clatter.

Ragnar can’t pray to Athelstan’s stupid, useless God. Even if he could swallow his anger, he’d never take comfort in Him the way the priest had. Neither does he have any use for his own gods, or any of the people he’d once called friends.

Never in his life has Ragnar felt so completely alone. But the time for tears has long since gone, so he does not allow himself to give into the urge. He sits, tormented by his guilt and his grief, but he does so with dry eyes. After all, he is still king and kings do not weep.

Kings also don’t hide. So each day he must return to the over-crowded hall to face the world that dares to continue to turn in Athelstan’s absence. He pretends the fire of his ambition has not been extinguished, and that he still intends to lead his men to previously unimaginable heights of glory.

Each day, Ragnar does only what he must.

Until finally— _finally!_ —there is a thaw. The weather warms, the snow begins to melt, and Ragnar is no longer held captive, suffocating among his people. He packs a bedroll and prepares to disappear, explaining his flight as mere restlessness. Anyone who has ever known him knows that he’s always despised the winter and the feeling of being trapped inside, anyway. Aslaug tries to argue—the children need him, she insists. He’s already going to be away raiding much of the summer and he can’t just up and leave whenever he likes.

Ragnar doesn’t respond. He’s going to do as he pleases and she can’t stop him.

The most stubborn remnants of snowfall linger. Ice and mud make the climb up into the hills difficult and treacherous, but Ragnar can’t bring himself to care. It’s a pilgrimage. As far as Ragnar understands, Christians always seem to find something noble in a struggle—Athelstan had once tried to explain it to him. It hadn’t made sense to him then, and it makes little more sense now, but despite the nonsensical nature of it all, Ragnar can’t help but feel as though he’s doing something right.

He searches for the cross he’d constructed to mark Athelstan’s grave.

It’s gone, trampled by an animal or simply broken beneath the weight of the snow. It doesn’t matter. The burial site is indelibly burned into Ragnar’s memory. He constructs a new cross out of defiance—he refuses to allow the world to erase his friend’s existence so easily. One day, he will find something sturdier to place there. Something neither the weather nor the wildlife will be able to dislodge. “I would raid a church for you, this summer,” he says as he binds two sticks together. “And bring back something truly worthy of you.”

But then he scoffs.

“But I suppose you’d not like that very much, would you. You’d prefer I allow the churches to keep their treasure, and I just continue to trek up here and endlessly replace these flimsy, wooden crosses.” Ragnar plunges the new cross into the ground, working it in deep enough that it should at least be able to withstand the wind without being toppled. “But what about when I’m not here, hm? Did you ever think of that? Because one day I won’t be. And your grave should never go unmarked and forgotten. I imagine you’d tell me I’ll just have to figure something out, wouldn’t you? It’s a wonder I tolerate your insolence.”

He would have given anything for that delightfully sharp tongue to put him in his place just one more time.

“I want to join you, Athelstan. There is little left for me here. Except I can’t, can I?” His voice is every bit as brittle as it had been the day he’d first carried Athelstan up into the hills to be laid to rest. “Even in death, you manage to be the most difficult man I know. The gods only know why I put up with it.”

He scoffs and the corner of his lips lifts in a sad smile. “Or, God, now, I suppose.” Even after months of trying, the singular still feels foreign and strange on his tongue. But it must be so if he ever wishes for a reunion. “I must endear myself to Him, I know. No small feat, I’m afraid. I think I must have committed just about every sin in that book of yours.”

It’s terribly unfair that the priest died a Christian. Just another injury to add to the endless list of injustices in Ragnar’s life.

“But you were devoted to Him, despite everything. He must love you. Maybe I’ll just have to hang my hope on that. Perhaps He will let me in not for my sake, but for yours.” He knows Athelstan’s God— _his_ God now, he must remember—is particularly fond of rules. But if anyone is worth bending them for, surely it must be Athelstan. “And I will try. You know me to be a man of my word, do you not? I’ll not let this farewell be forever. If there is a way, I will find it.”

Ragnar unpacks his furs and sets up his bed beside the grave. He will spend the night with his priest. And perhaps the next, too. He’s not yet ready to rejoin his people in Kattegat. He’s become so, very tired. And yet he can’t sleep. Not yet.

“I will go to Paris. Perhaps in one of their churches, I shall make my peace with Christ. And Bjorn may once again prove his mettle on the battlefield. Prove that in my absence, he will make a worthy king and Kattegat will prosper under his rule. And then… Then, my friend, I will find a proper way to mark your grave. When you see it, you will know. My work in this life is done and I am on my way to find you.”

It isn’t yet time for Ragnar to die. But God willing, it will come soon. And until then? Until then he will lay beside the place where he had buried his heart, and he will look up at the stars, imagining that their glimmering light is the twinkle in Athelstan’s eye as he looks down from Heaven.


End file.
